Outposts refactoring - 1

The Game Design team, composed of volunteers from all factions and adepts of all game styles, has been thinking about redesigning the outposts to give them back a real interest. It is the result of this reflection, which we began to share with you at the recent Ryzom Forge meetings, which has raised many comments and concerns.As a result, we would now like to move to collaborative development, in order to involve you in the upcoming changes. To this end, we will propose several modifications as we go along and, if they are acceptable to the majority, they will be applied in game. We will then submit further proposals to you and, of course, study your own.

Among the different proposals initially selected by the Game Design team, the three initial proposals that we offer to you are:

1. The decrease in the cost of attacks and the cost of squads (which will remain expressed in dappers);

2. Reducing the duration of battles to one hour;

3. A rotation of materials between the various outposts, every 72 days IRL, coupled with the withdrawal of outpost materials of quality 50 and 100.Thus, depending on the year of Jena (a year of Jena = 72 IRL days, or 2.4 months), any outpost could produce materials of quality 150, 200 or 250, with a lower yield for those producing materials of higher quality than the level of their region of establishment.

To this, we add a modification planned by Nevrax:

4. The attack and taking of half the outposts by NPCs or kitins every 72 days IRL.Each guild will then be able to register to try to take back one of these outposts, but without knowing which material it will produce… Priority will be given to guilds without outposts.

We invite interested players to vote for these four proposals and to give their opinions and comments in response to this post.

#3 - Having just done 2 rounds attacking a q50 OP where no one came to defend, I was thinking a change like this should be done. 72 days seems a little long, maybe change with seasons depending on how often mats are generated?

#4 - Would we be able to defend the OP against the Kitins/Bandits or would it be automatic? Being able to defend it would be fun and would be a good opportunity for Rangers that don't participate in normal OP Wars. Either way, I think it would be better to stagger it throughout the year so it's not complete kaos.

#4. I think that instead of "every" 72 days, it should be 72 days (+/-10) since the last successful attack. ((i.e., the lack of loud homin activity draws the interest of bandits or opportunistic kitins.)

I also agree with Asmodeusmogart that the possibility of defending the OP should be available. (i.e. bandit or kitins "declare" on the OP in some form of gameplay).

#3 Would the rotation be fixed? If not, how would it be programmed so that all materials would have a chance of being produced? How would the q-value of the produced materials be adjusted? In things like this, the devil is in the details.

I think that the q-adjustment might be set to vary every season, with two seasons at the q-value of the OP (or lowest setting for q50 OPs) and the other two at random.

More later

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Remembering TyneetrykPhaedreas Tears - 15 years old and first(*) of true neutral guilds in Atys.(*) This statement is contested, but we are certainly the longest lasting.<clowns | me & you | jokers>

#4 May be 1/4 of the OP should be suffisant, or there will be OP battle every day and no more time for RP Event.

#1 The decrease of the battle cost should be indexed on the size of the guild, the smaller the guild, the bigger the discount. But to avoid that alt guild declare war to artificially reduce the cost, the number of attackers should be limited to be eligible to the discount. RP speaking this makes sense, the "cost" of an attack representing the organization, armament expenses etc. which are necessarily less important for a small guild and few attackers.

#3 How would the rotation of the materal be done? 72 days from the date the guild takes the OP or on a fixed date for all OP at the same time? Will the new production be visible somewhere or can the guild keep it secret if they want to?

- Adding a new building type such as barracks. Purpose of this new building will be to train PNJs to defend the outpost while the owners are not there. This will have a cost to build the building and recruit PNJs.

I raised this because for me it doesn't make sense to have kamis alignment outpost in the forest without any reactions from the kingdom. And for me, we should have auto-attack on regular basis by PNJs (and as the outpost will need to be maintain ghost guild can't hold them anymore only active guild will do).

Also, as I previously said: this statement from the original post "The Game Design team, composed of volunteers from all factions and adepts of all game styles, has been thinking about redesigning the outposts to give them back a real interest. " is FALSE.

All ideas presented here doesn't give more interest in the outpost (which are already useless (except rubarn one). Everything discussed here is about balancing the ownership of the outpost.Some of the ideas are good (like removing the 2 phase or randomize the MPs) others not (Like the point 4 ... why giving priorities to someone ... outpost are for everyone not only for those to lazy to take one by themselves specially if the past OP owner does not have the chance to defend it's outposrt from the PNJ/Kitin attacks described in this point.(99.9% this idea is an attempt from PvE players to include PvE in outpost (while outpost exists for PvP) because they do not want to do PvP).

I also hope the two major changes proposed at the meeting remain "in":

- reduction of time- removal of phase 2

Overall this brings down the effective battle time to one hour instead of 4 (!). I would say even outpost defense becomes more bearable.

One may be willing to sacrifice an hour of sleep, e.g. staying from 1am to 2am, knowing their outpost has a real chance to remain safe. Most people that I know are not willing to sacrifice two hours repeatedly.

However, assuming the two things are implemented .. :

- I would reject proposal #1 (cost reduction). Maybe a slight adjustment, to make it easier for smaller guilds to attack a q250, but still above 10 million. If you want the good materials, you have to pay a premium for it. A team of dedicated crafters can raise that money in under a week. An entire faction (as things currently work) will raise the money in 1 day.

- I would support #3, under this condition: make the physical locations for an outpost more diverse, add more challenges etc.

For example, make aggros in the region spawn more frequently near an outpost during a battle (RP explanation: they get drawn to the homin blood). In this scenario, it would really make sense for a guild to avoid battle in one spot: e.g. small guild doesn't want jugulas poisoning the players, so they will wait until the material they desire will rotate to a different location where different tactics are useful.

- Defiinitely add #4, the reverting to a "neutral" state, perhaps an interval shorter than three real life months. This gives an in-game objective to the guild which owns it, to keep defending. Maybe even award guild points if they manage to keep an outpost after an NPC attack!

But, like Sinvaders, I fail to see any benefit in prioritizing guilds with no outpost, after such a reversal.

- My proposal for a #5: If material rotation is implemented, please please make this info available via the Ryzom API, so that current op/mat pairs can be checked.

- Oh, and maybe #6: Restrict repeated attacks.-- 6.1 : Restrict a guild to 3 attacks withing 4-7 RL days.-- 6.2: Restrict attack on the same outpost to 1 per 2-4 RL days. If phase 2 is removed, it would really be nasty to suffer an attack every day.

I'm against the decrease of the costs, as right now it's the only effective dapper sink in game. Guilds have hundreds of millions lying around with nothing to spend them on. Remove the OP costs and you can remove dappers as well, because there will be no use for them. TP costs are negligible.

Phase 2 should remain in place, in my opinion. The owners of OP should have a chance to defend their property. Over the years I have witnessed many battles in which an OP was saved in Phase 2, so this part of the game mechanic is useful. Before anyone brings "but this will help to change OP ownership more often" argument. Remember that Ryzom is played by people from different timezones. Losing an OP because you got outnumbered or outsmarted is OK. Losing an OP because a battle occurs at the time, when 3/4 of my faction is asleep or at work is definitely NOT OK. Phase 2 should stay as it is.

The rotation of materials, removal of low Q mats and attacks of NPC or mobs are all good ideas.

But I think the team of designers working of this project miss the point. The lack of interest in OP content is caused not by battle mechanics. It might be a part of the problem, but a minor part. The main reason is that rewards doesn't worth the effort.

Rebalancing of the OP mats would give the Outposts more, than all the changes proposed in this thread. Armillo, rubbarn and maga are fine, but what about other materials? Weapon mats are good for fancy looking stuff, but doesn't really affect gameplay in any meaningful way. Egiros takes a very small niche, greslin and cheng are trash.

I'd say, if you want to bring back the interest in Outposts, revise the OP mats first, everything else can be postponed.

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"People let the same problem make them miserable for years when they could just say "So what". That's one of my favorite things to say. "So what". - Andy Warhol.

1. The decrease in the cost of attacks and the cost of squads (which will remain expressed in dappers);

Indifferent, but this definitely will increase the OP activity.

Tamarea

2. Reducing the duration of battles to one hour;

Indifferent, but this definitely will increase the OP activity.

Tamarea

3. A rotation of materials between the various outposts, every 72 days IRL, coupled with the withdrawal of outpost materials of quality 50 and 100.Thus, depending on the year of Jena (a year of Jena = 72 IRL days, or 2.4 months), any outpost could produce materials of quality 150, 200 or 250, with a lower yield for those producing materials of higher quality than the level of their region of establishment.

Does this mean that an OP in a 150 region may produce Q250 material?

Tamarea

4. The attack and taking of half the outposts by NPCs or kitins every 72 days IRL.Each guild will then be able to register to try to take back one of these outposts, but without knowing which material it will produce… Priority will be given to guilds without outposts.

This is an excellent idea. I can see Rangers participating in this, specially if it is kitins, and not break their vows. If it is done right loners, and multiple guilds can build alliances. The non-primaries can be compensated with items/loot/dappers, etc. the primary would hold the OP.

All in all, my only concern, as some already pointed out, is timing. Let's not forget that we can have 12-hour difference between defenders and attackers. Whatever change we implement, let's make sure it is fair for all time zones.

As for me, the main problem of outposts today is that the biggest league win; even a better trained team, with good stuff and well tought tactics can't do it against bigger numbers. Considering how big the Kami faction is today compared to the rest of the players, that leave them little to no chance to stand out.

The main drawback of this mechanism is that as you need as many players as possible, a lot of players that are not interested into PvP are forced to come to the battles. And I often hear players from both sides, even the ones that like PvP, complaining that outpost wars are boring today.

As for me, the good way to solve this would be to limit the number of players on outposts. What I would suggest is a maximum by default of 18 players (two teams) on each side. The war interface would allow attacking and defending to propose a higher or lower number of players, by increment of 9, going as high as 72 and as low as 9. Going higher or lower than 18 would be possible only if both sides agree.

To control that, special warleague would be used. This league could be created only by superior officers and guild leaders from each attacking/defending guild. Being part of this warleague would automatically give you the corresponding "attack" or "defend" op tag.

This system would encourage players to enhance their PvP skills, stuff and tactic and to select champions to fight the war, making it both an interesting goal to reach for players and probably an interesting show to watch for non PvP players.

It would allow smaller faction to fight biggest ones on the same ground, yet still allowing the big fights with lot of players that we have today - but in a more interesting, more balanced way. It would also make guild vs guild possible, which lot of people have been asking for.

And a much bigger faction would still be able to fight on several outposts at the same time, which would grant them the almost certitude to win on one.

The main drawback is that players with lower levels would probably be excluded at some point. But if everyone change their mindset about opwar, we can definitely organize opwars where it's not all about winning but about having fun, and these players would have their role to play in this. Let's not forget that we're playing a game, not fighting for our lifes, loosing is not always fun but it doesn't kill you (thrust me, I don't win that often and I'm still in the game everyday ;).

As it has been said already by Kimmerin, this is not a good idea as op war is the only dapper sink today. Let's make dappers worth something with a lot of op wars! ;)

Today, I don't think dappers hold anyone back from declaring a war.

2. La réduction à une heure de la durée des batailles ;

Removing phase 2 is a bit scary to me, but it's probably a matter of getting used to it. Today phase 2 is making it very hard for the weaker side to win an op war, but it's also what allow them to keep their outposts by using a lot of launchers taking ammo directly from their guildhall, keeping them from having to craft during the battle.

Reducing op war time to one hour will kill the tactics that involve attacking two ops at the same time, as you don't have time in one hour to bring two op to TH6 with one group of homins. But on the other hand, it will also make it easier to plan op war on week evenings and not only on weekends like we do today.

I don't really know what to think of these changes - let's test it and see what happens!

How will this work exactly? will Q250 ops producing Q50 mats still have Q250 guards? If that's the case, no one will be willing to fight for these. And on the other side, Q50 ops producing Q250 mats will be under constant attacks. If you want to do that, limit the way it's done - Q250 could produce Q200/Q250, Q200 could produce Q150/Q200/Q250, and the lower level aps won't be able to produce Q250.

On the other hand, I think switching mats is a very good idea. Some ops are much more difficult to attack than other for some factions because of their proximity to teleporters. Switching mats will give more chance to each faction to get their hands on everything.

I'm not very enthusiastic for this change because all the NPC I've seen so far on Ryzom are either cheated-strong so you need all the server to defeat them, or have weakness that make it possible for a handfull of well trained homin to defeat them.

But this will bring some interest for the non PvP oriented players in op war and will sometime take op from the hands of the strongest faction, giving a chance to other factions to have them - even if it's for a short period of time.

On the overall, I think things have been moving the right way over the past few months, the dev team has been doing a lot of work and it really shows in game. Let's be as good on op war modification, I'm sure we can make it work!

One last thing : I read a lot that op mats ar useless; indeed Greslin and Cheng have little to no use, but that's it. Op mats won't make a newbie good at PvP, but in the hands of someone that know hot to use them, they can really make the difference. For those who have the feeling that they are lying around the server in stack of 500, that not the case. Very few percents of the op production leave the Kami hands. At Les Larmes, we have way more boosted stuff (which is still op stuff... but one mat can make a lot of items) than any other kind of op stuff. And this while we're on every big op war with at least a full team - few other guilds can say the same.

Its great that the mechanics around ownership of OPs and OPs in general is being relooked at. think it is simply not enough to get players like me back playing the game like I used to (if, in my vain opinion... this is one of the aims..)

I agree with Kimmerin who suggests looking at the OP mats that are produced atm and a new OP mat, for me, would deffinately peak my interest. New game content it what keeps a lot of people playing especially if they are at the end game stage and especially a game such as Ryzom.

The best OP battles I can recall were the ones after the merge and when the kami started to take over the OP. In both instances there was a real hunger for ownership of the OPs as guilds either had no OP mats to begin with or had dwindling stock but essentially you can trade so easy now that the latter is not of very real concern to most players.

I personally dislike the 1 hour battles idea. As we all know, there is a common tactic of declaring at sh... *cough* uncomfortable hours for your opponents. While it’s surely annoying, this is a valid tactic. The only counter to this tactic, as of now, is 2-hours length of battles.

People tend to be busy IRL, not everyone can log in game before a battle starts. But they can do it during 2 hours of active phase. I’ve seen many battles in which things initially went south for one of the sides, but then this side gathered enough players during first 8-12 rounds to turn the tables and actually win the battle.

2 hours length:

- allows more players participate in battles;- gives a chance for the side, outnumbered from the start, to win or at least to put up a fight;- partially counters attacks at “bad” times

I feel the Phase 2 is the better balance for time zone disadvantages. I see benefits to both the phase 2 removal and shortening battle length, but I guess i never considered that both would happen. My expectation was that either one woudl be possible- turning OP wars into one 2hr battle, or two 1 hour battles.

I think the balance for removing phase 2 is that your OP may be takne more quickly, but you can take your opponents OP just as quickly.

Shortening the battles to one hour is not a good idea imo.For some OPs the TP or respawn point can be quite far away. Take Loria for example where people prefer to come from WoM TP - well you can easily lose 2 rounds getting everyone to respawn there as quickly as possible and run up together. There are 20 rounds currently so this would be halved to 10 rounds if this suggestion is implemented.

Again, I dont actually think the issue is necessarily with the mechanics of OP battles but rather what they produce and how quickly/slowly they produce it. So the best suggestion imo would be the randomisation of what the OPs produce and hopefully this would have a positive impact.